Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Canada vs. the US

The rate of crime involving firearms is much lower in Canada than in the United States.

There are more than 30 times more firearms in the United States than in Canada. There
are an estimated 7.4 million firearms in Canada, about 1.2 million of
which are restricted firearms (mostly handguns). In the U.S., there are
approximately 222 million firearms; 76 million of the firearms in
circulation are handguns.

A much higherproportion of homicides in the United States involve firearms. For 1987-96, on average, 65% of homicides in the U.S. involved firearms, compared to 32% for Canada.

Firearm homicide rates are 8.1 times higher in the United States than in Canada. For 1987-96, the average firearm homicide rate was 5.7 per 100,000 in the U.S., compared to 0.7 per 100,000 for Canada.

Handgun homicide rates are 15.3 times higher in the United States than in Canada.
For 1989-95, the average handgun homicide rate was 4.8 per 100,000 in
the U.S., compared to 0.3 per 100,000 for Canada. Handguns were involved
in more than half (52%) of the homicides in the U.S., compared to 14%
in Canada.

Rates fornon-firearm homicides are nearly 2 times higher in the United States than in Canada.
For 1989-95, the average non-firearm homicide rate was 3.1 per 100,000
people in the U.S., compared to 1.6 per 100,000 for Canada.

Well, gee, if people don't have guns, they don't use guns. Took your side all day to figure that out, no? But note that our non-firearm homicides are also higher, and as FatWhiteMan observed, we have many times more guns. The conclusion that I draw from this is that there are cultural differences between the two nations and that guns aren't responsible for our somewhat higher rate.

First of all, that data is old. More importantly, that data conveniently encompasses the period with the highest violent crime rate in the U.S. in the last 100+ years. (The violent crime rate peaked in the U.S. around 1992 -- which just happens to be in the exact middle of the author's data set.) The violent crime rate in the U.S. is considerably lower over the last 6 years ... something like half of what it was during the author's data set. I don't know what the data is for Canada over the last 6 years.

What is much more compelling is the fact that the amount of firearms in circulation in the U.S. is considerably higher today than it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even more importantly, concealed carry laws are much less onerous over the last decade and something like 40 states are now basically "shall issue" states. And yet with citizens owning even more firearms and ever more citizens carrying them around in public, the violent crime rate in the U.S. continues to plummet ... now at its lowest point in almost 50 years.

If ubiquitous availability and presence of firearms is so awful, how do we reconcile the fact that as firearms become more and more available and present in public, the violent crime rate continues to decline? How do we reconcile the extremely low violent crime rates in "firearm paradises" like Vermont with the relatively high violent crime rates in "gun control paradises" like Illinois?